[GEOFF MEARNS]
My final podcast guest of this season is an accomplished graduate who came from humble beginnings. But he found career success and personal fulfillment in part because of his undergraduate experience right here at Ball State University. Tim Andrews spent 16 years at Dow Jones and Company before eventually becoming a leader in the promotional products industry. After spending 23 years as the CEO of the Advertising Specialty Institute, Tim has entered a different season of life, one in which he is newly retired.
Tim is enjoying the newfound freedom of what he refers to as his sabbatical by traveling. Among his latest trips is a visit to Muncie to fulfill his generous commitment as a member of the Ball State University Foundation Board of Directors. During his time on campus this week, Tim agreed to sit down with me to talk about his professional success.
In this episode, I'll also ask him about the challenges of being a first generation college student, why he chose to step away from a career that he loved, and why in recent years he's become so committed to his alma mater. We'll also talk about the mentors at our university who guided his professional aspirations, and we'll discuss why. Having a set of values as a college student, and also as a professional, can profoundly change your life.
So, Tim, welcome. Thank you for joining me.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Thanks very much for inviting me. Appreciate it.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So I often start these conversations by talking about where my guests grew up. And I understand you grew up in the small town of Saint Louis Crossing, Indiana. And as I understand it, and as I shared in the introduction, you came from very humble beginnings.
So why don't you tell us, please, a little bit about your childhood and your family?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Well, St. Louis Crossing was a town of about 100 people near Hope, Indiana, which is where the high school was. And Bartholomew County, which is the county—the county seat is Columbus, Indiana, which is quite well known for architecture. But growing up, it was very humble. We didn't have running water in our house until I was in fifth grade, and my father was mostly absent. My mom was disabled, and so it was a difficult upbringing, although to me it was—it was my life that I had. And so I guess I didn't have as much of a comparison other than we were the only people in town without indoor plumbing. So I knew that for sure. And we were very dependent on neighbors. My mom did not drive, and we certainly could never afford a car, so we were dependent on neighbors to go buy groceries and some of the things that you needed to do outside of this little town.
And, you know, we were on Medicaid and welfare and food stamps. And so once a month, I would go into the city of Columbus with a neighbor and pick up our food stamps, because you had to go to the office to pick them up. And my mom would have given me an envelope, a legal size envelope, with a shopping list and coupons inside. And so this 10 or 12 year old kid would, you know, go to a Marsh supermarket and walk around and get the things on the list and, you know, use food stamps and checkout. So it was ... it was not the easiest, you know, upbringing.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Do you have siblings?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I had an older brother. He was 20 when I was born and out of the country in the Army, and so we were never that close until our parents became quite old and elderly, and we had to sort of deal with all the things you deal with, with elderly parents. So I didn't really bond with him much. I had a lot of cousins, and that was great because we were mostly in school together. So there were about 25 first cousins.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
All within the same general area?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Yeah, that was my dad's area. My mom's area was a little further away, but so that was great. And they were certainly the brothers and sisters I didn't have.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. So as we continue the conversation, we're going to talk a little bit about your career, your success as a journalist. But I'm curious, was that interest in journalism, was it present, was it sparked when you were in middle school or high school?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Way before that. My brother actually bought me a typewriter. I was very intrigued at the whole gathering of information concept.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
How old were you when you got...
[TIM ANDREWS]
I was in second—well, first or second grade, because I did a little community newspaper when I was in second grade, and in second grade, I inaugurated a newspaper for the class, my second grade class. So incredibly early on, and I think I was inspired before the Watergate hearings. But I think also, you know, I was around 10 to 12 years old when the Watergate hearings were happening, and I came home every day after school and I thought, gosh, I want to be a journalist.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Because you wanted to report on significant, consequential events like the Watergate hearings.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Yeah. And I think gathering information, synthesizing that information, then using that in some way that was helpful to people really inspired me.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Were there teachers in your elementary school, in middle school, who saw that in you and nurtured it, supported you, or were you pretty much flying solo?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I was a little flying solo, I think I sort of recall in second, third and fourth grades with this newspaper idea. My teachers were very open, flexible, but I was a bit of a hard charger, I think. I think I was, I was, I was driving the ship a little bit more than maybe they wanted me to, I'm not sure.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Probably stood out a little bit in your elementary school with that drive.
[TIM ANDREWS]
I definitely stood out, I think.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, growing up, in the circumstances you described with, as you said, a mother who was disabled, I assume you needed some outside support to overcome those challenges. Who were the people in your life, the people who gave you strength during that time period? The people who then encouraged you to think about education beyond high school?
[TIM ANDREWS]
You know, I think it was my neighbors, you know, in this little town. It was a very close knit town, maybe not directly related, but we were all tangentially related in our circumstance and our geographic location. My mother was quite religious, and so the church that we attended 3 or 4 times a week, you know, was a very supportive environment. And so I was really blessed by that. And then further in high school, as it is, and I think really many educational institutions, the teachers were amazing and were incredibly supportive. You know, I remember English teachers that were very supportive of my writing. I was the editor of our yearbook and the advisor of the yearbook, Janine Blomenberg, was her name, or is her name. And she was very supportive of me thinking about journalism as a career.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
What was your mom's reaction—was, sometimes in those circumstances, parents are maybe reluctant to have their children embark upon a life that may be different than the one that they're living. Was your mom supportive or reluctant?
[TIM ANDREWS]
My mom and my dad, who was not in the picture often, they were both very supportive. I mean, I remember them always saying I was going to go to college, and my brother had not gone to college and had not finished high school until the Army. And I think they really saw that college was quite important. I think that the journalism piece, they understood the concept because in that period, everyone was reading a paper, maybe a morning and an afternoon paper. And they loved the idea of thinking that I would work at the local newspaper in Columbus, Indiana, where I interned in high school and college, and that was a local job. You know, it turned out that that's not what I did, but I think they were certainly supportive and saw that as a good career for me.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So speaking of college, what prompted you, inspired you, led you to come to Muncie, Indiana and Ball State University?
[TIM ANDREWS]
You know, in high school, I had gone to two journalism camps, not at Ball State, at IU, and my best friend in high school said, I'm going to Ball State. He was a music education major, and he said, I'm going to Ball State to visit. Do you want to come on a visit? And I said, sure, I'll go to Muncie, Indiana, wherever that is, and go on a visit, and came here and fell in love with the campus and the people. And quite a number of us, I think there were 7 or 8 out of my class of 85, 7 or 8 of us came to Ball State, and so it was a very supportive local community that sort of traveled to Muncie and enrolled in the same year at Ball State.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So what about the campus? You mentioned the campus. Tell us what you saw when you arrived here. What year would that have been? What year did graduate from high school?
[TIM ANDREWS]
1980. So that would have been probably ‘79. [GEOFF: Okay.] I saw a huge place because it's so big, even then. I thought everyone I met was incredibly friendly and that was just magical to me. And it was also an area, a place you could navigate. It didn't seem so large to be impossible to sort of understand, and I just loved it. I just came back and we were both very excited. My best friend from high school, we were both super excited. He was certainly excited about the music program and already was, you know, very committed to Ball State. And so I said, sure, I'm coming to Ball State.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So, but you had very limited resources. How as a first generation college student with access to very little resources, how were you able to afford attending and living on campus or in the community?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I was very lucky in the sense that, you know, there were great programs. I was a Hoosier Scholar, which was a program at least then, I'm not sure that still exists, that really helped students that were academically accomplished, in a way. And also Pell Grants. So I was a huge beneficiary of all of that. And really every quarter, we were in the quarter system then, you know, got a little check that said, here's a little money, because your Pell Grant and your Hoosier Scholar and a couple of other small scholarships that I qualified for, actually gave me a little money to be able to buy pizza once in awhile.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So tell us about your experience as a journalism student here. And specifically, were there 1 or 2 faculty members or staff members who supported you during that experience?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I would name for people that were incredibly important. One was Tom Fassel. Tom Fassel was the hall director at Swinford Hall. He was—he is a magical guy. We're now Facebook friends, after all these years. We found each other a couple of years, go on Facebook. He was an incredible hall director and really very supportive. And I worked at the front desk after my freshman year. So from an academic life perspective, he was really important in my time here. And from an academic perspective, Dave Knott who was the advisor and a journalism professor, but he was advisor to the newspaper, The Daily News, was really important. Marilyn Weaver, incredibly important. Louis Engelhart, who is a name that is synonymous with so much at Ball State in terms of journalism, was one of our, one of my professors for quite a few classes. Joe Costa, who was a photography professor. You know, it could go on and on and it's amazing I can recall those names, and that's how important they were to me and how important the work they did with me was to my life.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So when you reconnect with a faculty member you knew just a few decades ago. Do you take those opportunities to share your gratitude, your appreciation?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I have. I reached out to Tom Fassel because of something that came up that I wanted to share with him in terms of a life event that I thought he would appreciate. And a few years ago, I was here for the ribbon cutting for the Multicultural Center. And Dave Knott and Marilyn Weaver both showed up at that because they had seen that I was involved in that in some way. And after all these decades of not seeing them, they showed up. And I would say they both showed up for me when I was a college student, and they showed up for me 40 years later because they saw my involvement in the Multicultural Center. And that was so meaningful to me that day.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
That's remarkable. Thank you. You mentioned also that you worked on the student newspaper while you were here. How did that experience prepare you for your next step after you graduated?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think it really allowed me to manage a team and learn how to collaborate with a team, because I was managing editor and I was very involved in that day to day management of the group, it allowed me to understand and contribute to the professionalism of an organization. I had worked at the Columbus Republic newspaper, and I had some more professional experience, than frankly some of the other students did. I think that was really helpful. And it also gave me the rigor, because I was working the front desk at Swinford Hall, I was working at the newspaper 35 hours a week, carrying a typical load as a student and balancing all of that and being able to make that all work, I think really prepared me for real life, which is, of course, a balancing act every day.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, with a busy schedule and a lot of responsibilities to juggle. I also understand from preparing for this conversation that while you were here at Ball State, you were selected for a pretty prestigious internship. Tell us about that.
[TIM ANDREWS]
I was walking down the hallway in West Quad where journalism was housed—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Which is where we're sitting right now.
[TIM ANDREWS]
It brought out a lot of memories, although it's a much nicer building than it was when I was here in 1980, early 1980s. So in the hallway, there was a poster for the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund program, which selected students every year for a program, 600 applicants, 50 students. And you were placed in a local newspaper around the country somewhere as a copy editor.
And I thought, gosh, you know, I've worked at the Republic for three summers. I should do this between my junior and senior year, if I can get it. And I filled out the form. Came back after Thanksgiving break to a letter saying that I'd been selected and I'd be working at Dow Jones in New York City, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, for the summer. And I was blown away.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Were you also anxious going from a from a small town in Indiana all the way to New York City? That make you anxious, or were you more excited?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I was a combination. I think I was anxious and I was eager, and my parents were more anxious than eager. And it was really amazing. And that opportunity to go to New York, I went over spring break to sort of get the lay of the land. I stayed in a YMCA. I had to go to Bracken Library to photograph maps to figure out how to get, you know, a bus from LaGuardia to 34th Street where the YMCA was—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
You didn't go on the app on your cell phone?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Yeah. We didn't have those apps, right? So it really changed my life and opened my eyes up to so much to be able to be in a big city. I'd never been in a big city. I'd been in Indianapolis, I had been to Chicago a couple of times as part of Ball State, but I had never been to a big city and certainly not like New York.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so where did you stay when you were in the city?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I looked up where to stay, and I stayed at a YMCA on 34th Street, the Sloane YMCA. It's now closed, and it was about 7 or 8 bucks a night. It was about two blocks away from Macy's. I was there for four days. It poured every day and I walked every day all over the city.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Right. We can talk about that other experience, but walking New York City is a great experience if you get a chance to live there. What was the work like while you were there as an intern?
[TIM ANDREWS]
You know, I was working at night, actually. They had me editing Wall Street Journal copy to transmit electronically around the world. It was an international newswire that I was working on, and so I would go in at 7 or 8:00 at night. I'd work till two in the morning. I would take a Path train to Hoboken, New Jersey, where not many people lived back then. It's a very hot spot now, and it was not in 1980—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yes, I lived in New York City area at that time. Hoboken was not what it is today.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Yes, so I would do that. I would walk my nine blocks to the apartment I had and repeat, you know, and I worked Sunday through Thursday. So it was not a very social summer, because while I had met a couple of people in the program— because they had a two week training program at NYU beforehand—but I wasn't very social. I mostly ran a lot, and every Friday I would come in at noon, I would have lunch, I would go to the TKTS booth in Times Square. I would buy a ticket to a theater event that evening because I thought, I may never be back in New York and may never see Broadway again. And so I went to 15 shows over the course of the summer.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Explain for those who are listening, who may not be familiar, what is that, TKTS?
[TIM ANDREWS]
So, TKTS is an area in in Times Square. You go up, there's a board with theater opportunities there, they’re half price. And it's sort of just grab what you can go with.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Because it's whatever is those tickets unsold for a show that might be coming up that day or the next day.
[TIM ANDREWS]
It's that day. It's that day. So you buy whatever you buy and that's the show you're seeing. But it was like 20 or 30 bucks and that's what I could do. I was making 250 a week or something, right, at Dow Jones.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Right. So after you graduated from Ball State, you found your way back to Dow Jones. And I think that was—was that your first job out of college?
[TIM ANDREWS]
It was. And in fact, I didn't apply for a job there. They had told us we don't hire interns out of college, so don't think you can even apply here. I did not apply and I thought I was going to end up back either in Columbus, Indiana, or in Franklin, Indiana, at two newspapers that had offered me jobs. But I answered a blind ad, a PO Box ad, in a magazine called Editor and Publisher, which was something that journalists read to get jobs and to learn about the industry. And I mailed a resume and a letter to a PO Box. It ended up landing on the desk of a manager who had been about 20 feet away from me during the course of the summer.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So knew you?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Knew me. I had no idea where the resume was going. He writes me a letter that says small world in light of the fact that you were 20 feet from me. Why didn't you apply for a job? Call me collect, you know. And I called him collect and he said, oh, you need to fly in for an interview.
And so that's how I landed the first job at Dow Jones. Completely happenstance.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Did you tell him the reason you hadn't applied is because they told you that you couldn't get it?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Yes, I said you don't...He said, oh, but you know, I just say that because not everybody, you know, that we hire. And by the way, that summer I was sitting in the first meeting with eight of us that were working at Dow Jones. Most of them were at the LA Times, in other places where only eight of us were working at Dow Jones. And we went around the room and the first person was, I go to Princeton, I go to Yale, I go to Harvard. I was the last person. And I said, and I go to Ball State. Everyone is like, where is Ball State? They know now I think.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Right. Well, because David Letterman, another distinguished Ball State graduate, referred to us as the Harvard of Muncie. [TIM: Yes. Yeah.] How did your work, what was your first job at Dow Jones, and how did your responsibility there change? You were there, what, 15 years?
[TIM ANDREWS]
15 years. I was a journalist for the first six years. My first job was putting headphones on, answering an incoming phone line and taking dictation from a Wall Street Journal reporter who was standing at a phone booth covering an event or calling in from a bureau around the country. And we did not have connectivity between the bureau and New York.
And so they would call and dictate their stories to us. And so my job was taking dictation from that reporter, writing the headline, doing all that editing work in real time. And then we would, I would hit a button. It would go out to all the big brokerage houses. So this was real time news being distributed to big brokerage firms, financial institutions around the world.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And so that was your first position there. Was there somebody between you and the send or was there an editor?
[TIM ANDREWS]
There was one person between you and the send. But if it was a hot news item, what you did was incredibly important. Because you're crafting a headline, you hit a button, the headline goes out to the world and the headline says whatever it says, and you better have it right. So it taught you a lot of lessons. The first few weeks is a pretty rigorous training, but also a pretty difficult couple of weeks because you make mistakes.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
I was just going to say, do you recall one of those mistakes that you learned from?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I recall many mistakes. Misspelling people's names. You know, General Motors calling it American Motors, you know, so those are mistakes you don't forget and you don't repeat if you're going to keep the job.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Right. So how did that work then evolve? How did it change over time while you were at Dow Jones?
[TIM ANDREWS]
So at the end of my sixth year, I went in and told my boss and said, you know, I really want to move to the business side. And he said, that's really tough to do.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Why did you why did you want to move to the business side?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I thought you probably made a little bit more money, but I wasn't sure. But I also thought I really liked the business aspects of things. At Ball State, I had studied journalism and economics. I had paired economics. I really had an interest in the business of journalism and media. And so I really wanted to move to the business side. So through a series of events, I landed in a product marketing job, and for the next ten years, I was in product marketing roles at Dow Jones.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Product marketing? What does ... tell me a little bit more what that means.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Yeah, we were really developing the first online services in the world, and so we were really investing heavily in how do we get news to people. And our first products were about librarians using a database to do searching with very complicated search terms and trying to extract things. That was the beginning of that aspect of the business, and by the end of the ten years, we'd come through the full cycle of software development. You know, having business professionals have access to our product data and our information in the archive of the Wall Street Journal, going back to 1960 and all this great trove of information we had, to the web. And so I was there during that entire decade of transitioning from incredibly difficult to use products to products that were very simple. We went from 22,000 people using our products when I arrived at the beginning of that decade, and at the end, we had 1.5 million people using our products and services. And so it was an incredible growth time to be at Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So what did your boss say or the person say when you said, I want to go over to the business side?
[TIM ANDREWS]
He said, you need to stay here, it’s much better. I'll get you a tryout at the Wall Street Journal if you want. But I really wanted to move to the business side, and so we got that worked out.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Okay. So tell us about living in New York at that time. You're a relatively young man in a big city in the mid to late 1980s and early 1990s. I lived in the city at that time. It was a little different back then.
[TIM ANDREWS]
It was a little different. It was certainly, you know, a city that was finding itself—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, because the ‘70s had been very rocky for New York, the city almost went bankrupt.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Right. And it was dirty and it was a lot going on. I loved it, though. I loved the grittiness of New York. I loved there was so much to do, you know? And as a 21, 22 year old gay guy, you know, arriving in New York, that was an incredible time. A scary time because of HIV/AIDS. But it was a great time to be in New York City and experiencing all the city had to offer.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. Where were you living at the time?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I was living—I moved back to Hoboken and then I moved to Jersey City, which also was.... I moved into the first building ever renovated in Jersey City when it was getting it’s renaissance in sort of the late ‘80s. And so I've been on the edge of location.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, you've been on you've been on the cutting edge of some of those locations because, again, I'm familiar with those areas. So you left Dow Jones after 15 or 16 years to become the president of PriMedia Business Magazines. Tell us about that development in your career?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Yeah, I thought I would be at Dow Jones forever, and I think everyone I worked with thought that I would be at Dow Jones forever. And a search firm called and said, we got this really interesting opportunity with this public company. It's owned by a big buyout firm called Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts, in New York City. [Geoff: KKR.] KKR, well known. They have a spot they really want to fill with someone with lots of experience on the digital side—because digital, this is 1999 internet's hot—people that have had 15 years of digital experience were hard to find, and they had a huge magazine business and they said, we really want someone to transform this magazine business into a digital business. In addition to magazines and trade shows, we own both. And so that was a three year assignment and it went great. I learned a lot.
I really considered it my MBA because KKR had incredible resources and super smart people and all sorts of consultants, and money seemed to be no object. If you really had a problem you were trying to solve. And so it was an incredible journey. It was also a difficult one. You know, the internet bubble burst and so lots of economic havoc occurred. 9/11 happened during that period. And we had a lot of employees in New York City. I was in Kansas City, had just flown in from Kansas City that morning. And so we had to rally people. So it was three years of learning from a business perspective, but also how to manage people through difficult times, economic times, as well as socio economic times because of what happened in 9/11.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So what did you learn? Share with us a little bit more about how you’ve learned to manage people through crises? There are challenges now in the economy. There's challenges on businesses and higher education and other industries. How do you lead other people during those challenges?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think I've led transparently. I think you have to be very honest with people about what's happening. I think one cannot be Pollyanna and say, it's all fine and you don't need to worry about anything. I think you have to lay out hope. I think you have to lay out that you still care about people, even if you're making difficult decisions, and if there's difficult things going on in their lives, you know, it's very difficult.
We had a conference call on 9/11 with 30 or 40 employees in New York who were watching the World Trade Center, you know, go down. And we have to talk, I think, as leaders about what the future holds and that there will be a future and we will navigate it together. And it's a team and it's a tribal movement. It's not an individual leading the charge. I'm not a believer that there's an individual in the front. [GEOFF: There's no savior. ] There’s no savior. You're moving as a tribe. And so it's really tribally doing. And what are you saying to people and what is the hope and what are the measures? And it's a lot of listening, you know.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So how do you thread that needle or strike that balance of, as you say, you can't be Pollyanna and say everything's fine. But yet instilling hope and optimism that a brighter future can lie ahead if you do certain things, how do you strike that balance?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think for me, it's always been the honesty, and the transparency has always led people to believe that I was telling them what I thought was the truth and what I thought was going to happen. I think listening to their concerns and trying to address their concerns. People really are fairly simple at the end of the day. They want to know, will I have a job? Or if I don't have a job, what's going to happen to me? How are you going to lead us through this? What's it look like around the corner? Because it's not going up a hill and down a hill. It's really, you're turning a lot of corners. And so how are we going to look at things and, and also I think trusting them, you've got to trust your team to do the right thing. And if you've worked together even a brief time and you've built up this capacity to trust. Both them trust you, but also you trust them, I think you can get through almost anything.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Did you acquire this leadership temperament through watching others? Studying leadership? Was it something that you just think is innately part of your disposition and character?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think I observed, and I was lucky to be with lots of people that showed me that level of trust and that they trusted in me, that they were looking out for me. I think it was somewhat innate, for whatever reason. I go back to the journalism piece. You know, I think a good journalist listens to lots of different opinions and viewpoints on a topic. They synthesize that information, they write a headline, and then they write the story with the most important facts at the top. And they sort of go from there. And I think that a good leader does the same thing. They're listening to lots of viewpoints, lots of opinions, broadly casting that net. And then synthesizing that into what they believe is the core of what they want to share with others. And so that's how I've led.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And trusting their own instincts. [Tim: Yes.] So after PriMedia, you took a kind of a pivot away, more than just kind of a pivot away, to become the president and CEO of Advertising Specialty Institute. Can we just call it ASI for short?
[TIM ANDREWS]
Absolutely.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Okay, good. Tell us a bit more about what ASI is, what it does, and then why that offer was attractive to you.
[TIM ANDREWS]
You know, it's not as big of a pivot as it might appear. At PriMedia we had 85 magazines in about nine different industries. ASI is in one industry, promotional products. And the advertisers in our publications and on the web, and exhibitors at our trade shows, are all people who manufacture promotional products. So anything you can put a logo on, any merch you've ever gotten, any swag you've ever had, all the Ball State swag and promotional items, right, are manufactured by about 3000 companies in the United States or imported by those people.
And then there's 25,000 firms that resell them. So we sit between those two places. So we're a bit like the New York Stock Exchange of promotional items. So if someone wants to source a promotional item, they use our platform, the ASI platform, and they source it through one of these suppliers. And so ASI sits between those parties. And it was an interesting business when I got there. It was really a print based business, so this is 2003. They were not quite as far along in the digital world as they wanted to be. And the idea was, how do we take this mostly print business and really blow it out from a digital perspective? And so we really transformed the entire business. It was 90% print revenue in 2003, and as I left, it was 1% print revenue, perhaps in 99% digital and the business is quadrupled. And so it's been a real fun trajectory.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Were you discovered by a headhunter? Did you... I suspect you didn't respond to a classified ad to get this job.
[TIM ANDREWS]
It was a search firm. And they said there are three things the family that owns the business, it's privately held, was privately held and has been since 1962. And they said there are three things we're looking for: somebody who understands product marketing and management, what's making money and what's not, and what kind of products should we launch to make more money?
Secondly, we want somebody who's going to be out and about with customers. And I missed that at PriMedia. I wasn't doing that. With Dow Jones I had been out with customers almost all the time. And third, we want someone who's going to help transform the business from a generational perspective. So that family was in second generation. They wanted someone to help move it to the third generation.
And so the person who was hiring me was 70. His kids were in the early 30s, and this was a three-year gig initially to get that to happen. And so I thought, wow, working for a family business and often family businesses fail between the second and third generation. And I thought, when I retire someday and look back in my career, it will be really rewarding to believe that I successfully helped a family transition from the second to the third generation.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Because my understanding is if you can get it to the third generation, then it can sustain. [Tim: That's right.] But it took longer than three years.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Well, three years turned into five. It all worked out pretty well. The owner and the family were from Iowa but living in Philadelphia. So he had been born in Iowa and we really struck it—the search firm actually, about 15 minutes into my first conversation, said, I told my story and he said, oh, Norman Cohn, the owner, who was 70 at the time, is going to love you because he had been in Iowa. When I first met Norman, he said, I went to Iowa State Teachers College, by the way. And did you know, Tim, that Ball State was a teacher's college? And of course, you know....so that was the first five minutes we connected and I connected with the kids. And so it turned into a 23 year run. And I retired from ASI at the end of March of 2026.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So serving as the CEO of a family owned, privately held business, brings some challenges. Was that, having a small number of shareholders, so to speak, can be beneficial, but when they’re family members it can be a challenge. Tell us how you managed that part of the job.
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think I was—I played the part I described, so I was transparent. I beat any bad news to the door, I listened to everything they all had to say. And there are five children, Norman, Suzanne and five children. And so that's a lot of input.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
And seven people, probably 21 different perspectives.
[TIM ANDREWS]
At least 21. Yes, I think it's actually seven to the third power or something, whatever that would be. And so it was, but it really worked out. I think they trusted me, and Norman set it up perfectly and had my back every day. He told the family—and this is a good lesson for people—he told the family from this moment forward, Tim's making all business decisions. We will not second guess him. We will tell him what we think up front. Once he's decided what to do, we will never second guess him. In 23 years, not one time did one family member or Norman ever say we told you so. Or if only you'd listen to me, or only if you'd done that? Never. Not a single time. And believe me, there were lots of times when they could have said that for sure.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah, that must have been a wonderful experience to develop that level of confidence in—
[TIM ANDREWS]
Confidence and trust. And, you know, Norman and I decided about a year and a half ago we would refer to it as—he was at that moment, 92 or 93—and we decided, he said, before I go on my long cruise, that's how we referred to when he would not be in the building, he said, you know, I think you need to go before I do. And so I left at the end of March, and he passed away three weeks later. And so the family was able to select a new CEO, and the new CEO joined as I was departing. And Norman, who had been chair the entire time, named two of his children as co-chairs and he became chair emeritus. And it was an incredibly difficult month exiting ASI and retiring and then to deal with the loss of Norman, who was an incredible person in every regard. But it worked out, you know, as we had discussed.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So do you feel as you look back on it, hasn't been that long, that across those 23 years you were able to accomplish at the highest level what you wanted, which was to successfully transition the business to that third generation?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think so. I think we did it all together, and I think they're ready. And I think it's the right timing for them. And I think that, you know, the right CEO is in place. And so I feel great about it. It's been a wonderful period of time, despite the difficulty of facing the loss of someone I spoke to every day. I spoke to him the day he passed away.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So in preparing for this conversation, I read a profile about you that ASI shared online. The profile was described as an exit interview. In that piece, your employees, a broad number of your employees, spoke very highly of you as a as a leader and as a man. It was evident to me, and then probably anybody who read that article, that many of the people who worked for you would have preferred for you to stay on a bit longer.
Why did you decide, though, that this year was the right time to step away from that role? The right time, sounds like we've talked a little bit, the right time for the company, but why was it right for Tim Andrews?
[TIM ANDREWS]
You know, when I pulled the entire company into a room to have an all company meeting where I was going to announce that I was leaving, which was about six months before I did, and the family then was going to explain the process of searching for a new CEO. I walked up to the microphone and I said, I'm retiring.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
That was the first word.
[TIM ANDREWS]
First words. I just said, I'm retiring.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Just put it out there.
[TIM ANDREWS]
That's it. And I then opened it up for questions after I explained that I was leaving and the family talked about their plans and their process. And the first question was why now? Why today? And I said, you know, one of my mentors said to me a few years ago, I called someone, I said, his name is Dave. He just passed away also. I said, Dave, you know, I'm really having a hard time in my job—it was not at ASI, this was earlier in my career—and I'm thinking about quitting. And he said, before you make that decision every morning you ask yourself this question, are you the best person to be doing the job you're doing? Or is there someone that you think could do a better job? And if there's no one that you think can really do a better job, then stick with a job. And a few months ago, in thinking about the changes that are happening in the industry we serve of merchandise at ASI, the family's pending transition, my own age, and thinking about what do I want to do to stay engaged and active in the next little while, all the things happening in AI and technology, and the speed of things happening. And I one morning said to myself, am I the best person? And I said, you know, I think I'm not. I think someone with a longer runway, we just completed a strategic plan review. Someone with a little bit longer runway that I'm going to have here, because I'm 64. So how long does that look like? And so what's that runway look like? Someone with different skill sets. Someone who is a digital native. I grew up in a print analog world and jumped into digital very early, so that was very helpful. But someone who's been a digital native and can move that speed and think about things in a different way. And so I answered that question just like that to that employee. I said, I looked and I said someone else I think can do a better job than I can.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So that took a lot of courage to be candid. Not many people in that position, with the extraordinary success that you had for 23 years, would have the grace and humility to say, there's probably somebody out there who can do it better.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Well, I think we've all seen people who have stayed on too long.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
We've seen a few of those.
[TIM ANDREWS]
And that is very problematic. That always ends poorly for everyone. And I wanted to make sure that for the Cohn family and for the industry we serve and for the 400 employees that we have, and for all the people who are dependent on us for the livelihood they have, as a $26 billion industry, and 75% of it is now in our responsibility, really, as ASI. I want to make sure that that all had a great runway forward.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
So I want to ask a couple more questions about leadership. So for folks who are listening, particularly maybe folks who are younger than you and who aspire to become the kind of an effective leader that you have been, what advice would you give them?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think be open to opinions that are unlike your own. I think especially in the social media world, where everything is incredibly tailored to what you've clicked on or what you've watched, or what you've said or what you've ordered on Amazon. We are tailored to and made to think that we have the best ideas and the brightest ideas, and we're surrounded by people who are similar, at least in a digital world, that we are. And I think that's very dangerous. I think look more broadly, understand that you have to look outside of your ring of influence and your sphere of knowledge. And that, to me, is incredibly important, because if we all simply believe that, you know, our PR is right about each of us or each of our friends or each of our, you know, allies in whatever form, we're really missing it because we don't know everything.
And I think that's really important for a leader, especially in the future with all the things and how fast things are moving. It's so exciting to me. But it is different than it has been.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. My second question in this area is: You've often heard me speak about the importance of values, our enduring values. When you were CEO of ASI, you also spoke, affirmed, the values of that institution in a way that probably hadn't been done at that company before. did you do it and how did you do it?
[TIM ANDREWS]
You know, about my first month in, one of the family members, one of the children said, Tim, what's special about working for a family business? And I gave a terrible answer, really an awful answer. And so I decided, you know, we need to really think about what it is to be at ASI as a family business and as a business serving the people we're serving.
So a group of we, we had a group of people come together to talk about our values and our mission and the things like that, and they came up with a list of things in one week and, still acting sometimes as a journalist or at least an editor, I took that list home and really worked on the exact order of those 10 or 12 items and the words that we had there, and the first item at the top of the list? We care. About our colleagues, about the communities where we live, and about our clients. And at my next family meeting, we had them quarterly, I said, about three years ago you asked me a question. I gave a very tough answer that was terrible. But here's the real answer. The difference is we care. And so that ordering of those values became incredibly important to the company. We had them on all the walls. During your annual review process, your first question that you were asked to answer on your review, your self review, was how have you supported each of these values? And we really pushed on that to make sure that everyone understood what they were and that they were incredibly important to making sure that those values lived. Because it's on paper or on the wall or wherever. But is it woven into how we operate every day? And that's incredibly important.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. And what I've experienced here in this distinctive culture at Ball State is those values. My view, a person's values determines their character, and the culture of an organization is determined by the collective character of the people. And, you know, we've often heard in leadership culture is what drives institutional success. You can have a great plan, but if you don't have the right culture, you're not going to achieve success.
One of our university’s enduring values that I care deeply about is gratitude, and it's evident to me and anyone who knows you, that you've lived your life, both professionally and personally, that you embody that value. So why did you decide to get reengaged at Ball State? Why have you decided as part of your engagement, not only to serve on the foundation, but to be a very generous benefactor to the university?
[TIM ANDREWS]
You know, I had not been very engaged with Ball State for a very long time. And I had an email from someone who asked me if I wanted to have lunch with this new president named Geoff Mearns. And so I thought, oh, I don't know, you know. And I show up at the lunch, a little halfhearted, and met you and spent an hour and came away incredibly impressed.
And so my engagement level was not about President Mearns, but about what President Mearns was leading here. And you had just undertaken the work with the Muncie public school system. And I left that saying, wow, this conversation was not about Ball State, but it was about Ball State and it's incredible importance to that area of Indiana and not ignoring what's happening just outside its walls, so to speak. And that was really very exciting to me. So that generated my immediate engagement. And then over time, as I learned more about what was happening at Ball State, which is that there's so much exciting things happening here, and I took a tour for the first time in like 20 years or something after that. And I was like, wow, I'm amazed, you know? And so that really reengaged me because I think we're doing at Ball State great work that is lifting up not only, you know, this area of Indiana, but Indiana and the Midwest and the entire country. And the impact that the students have and the professors have in the work, they're having, it’s attracted so much attention from people. And I brought friends back 3 or 4 years ago for that—
[GEOFF MEARNS]
I remember that.
[TIM ANDREWS]
For the Multicultural Center dedication. And we're all walking around and they're sort of ranging from 35 to 60 in age and they're like, wow, this place is awesome. We wish we had gone to a school like this. And so I think that also builds pride. You know, I was like, wow, you know, it really is awesome. And so I think that's why I've gotten more engaged ... and also, you know, you get to a point— I've now I referred to with friends that I'm in my “third third”, you know, if you're lucky enough to live to about 90, your first 30 years is about educating yourself and learning who you really are and engaging with some friends who will probably be friends for life, you hope. 30 to 60, you're sort of working and saving and doing all the things that you do to gather, you know, your life together and to serve your family and friends and your colleagues. And then at 60, at least for me, it's about what's the next 30 years looks like. Because it's not—you’ve got to plan it. To me, I'm a planner, right? And so intentionally I've been thinking about that third third. So as I've thought about that, that really is why a few years ago, I got much more engaged because I said, I want to give back even more to educational institutions, Ball State being the principal one, that have really served me and I think are serving others today.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Yeah. So thank you for your kind words. Thank you for accepting the invitation to join me for lunch. You know, we define that enduring value of gratitude as expressing appreciation but demonstrating appreciation through your actions. You talked about giving back. In the article that I referred to earlier in our conversation, there was a quote that says, “It's like he's continually remembering where he came from and paying it back tenfold.” Is that part of your motivation, not just Ball State, but a reflection of your circumstances as a young man? Young boy?
[TIM ANDREWS]
There were many Christmas Eves when a fire truck would stop in front of our house, and a couple of firemen would walk up the sidewalk and have a box with my name on the side. And that was my Christmas. And so I, I think about that. I think about so many other things that people did for me that were small to them, perhaps, or built into what they are, their DNA. You know, those firemen are not doing it to get credit, right? They're doing it because that's who they are, and that's why they're rescuing people and doing all the things they're doing and making sure that people have a good Christmas or holiday season. So I think it's all of that. And giving back because what else is there? You know, we leave at the end of that “third third.” And what are we going to leave money to people? What are we going to do? Why don't we do things now? There's a saying in giving about charity about you can either give with a cold hand or a warm hand. I think the warm hand is much better than the cold hand.
And so that's my goal in the next 30 years, God willing, for the next 30 years.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, we hope it's even more than 30. So, you know, if you've listened to my podcast, you know where I'm heading now with my last question. And it's a natural segue also from that. Beneficence means doing good for other people through service and through philanthropy. So, Tim Andrews, what does beneficence mean to you?
[TIM ANDREWS]
I think it means everything. And I think it especially means that not everyone has the most money in the world. Not everyone has the most time in the world. Not everyone has every skill in the world or talent, but it is taking what you have and doing your best with it. And so for me, it's doing whatever I can do in a way that feels right to me and is helpful to others.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Well, thank you. Thank you for joining me today. Thank you for sharing some of your insights from your life and your career. And thank you for being so engaged and supportive of Ball State University. Thank you, Tim.
[TIM ANDREWS]
Well, thank you, President Mearns, and thanks for all you do for Ball State, which is an amazing amount of things. Very exciting times at Ball State. And I can't wait to see what's ahead in the future.
[GEOFF MEARNS]
Thank you, Tim.